Chelsea, New York
Bang Geul Han
Land of Tenderness
The 8th FloorThe Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation is pleased to present Land of Tenderness, a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary NYC-based South Korean artist Bang Geul Han. The exhibition presents part one of Terre de Tendre, a new virtual reality work and accompanying immersive video installation. The work is loosely based on the Carte du Tendre: a map created by a group of women in 17th century France that charts the path towards true love through an imagined land. The simulated landscape is embedded with text generated by an artificial intelligence system trained on legislation and court rulings concerning immigration and borders, as well as firsthand accounts of migrant children’s journeys and experiences. The work uses virtual reality technologies to interrogate themes of interdependency, memory, empathy, and care among human and non-human agents, in order to approach and reframe questions concerning the ongoing migration crisis. Land of Tenderness also features recent works across a variety of media, with an emphasis on legislative changes including the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the difficult decisions it leaves for the most vulnerable among us in its wake. In recent years, the artist has posited the female body as a territory governed by skewed laws. Han directly confronts the racial and gender disparities originating in such laws, as well as the consequences of rulings and legal opinions made by powerful male figures, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Samuel Alito. Through this methodology, she endeavors to expose implicit biases inherent in the policing of gender and its respective power attribution. The artist’s research- driven practice incorporates a range of technological interventions, such as data-mining, artificial intelligence, interactivity and virtual reality, as well as journalistic methods such as Freedom of Information Act requests. These approaches are incorporated into more traditional physical media to create works in a wide range of forms that are poetic, analytical and political. Born and raised in Seoul, Korea in 1978 and based in the US since 2003, her work has been shown in venues including The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Queens Museum, NurtureArt, A.I.R. Gallery, Cuchifritos Gallery in New York City, and Centro Internazionale per l’Arte Contemporanea in Rome. She is a recipient of a number of artist residencies and fellowships including Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace program, A.I.R. Fellowship, MacDowell Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia, PA. Han received her MFA (2005) in Electronic Integrated Arts from NYSCC at Alfred University in Alfred, NY and BFA (2002) in Painting from Seoul National University in Korea. Land of Tenderness is curated by Anjuli Nanda Diamond and George Bolster. The ongoing development of Terre de Tendre is supported by a 2023 Creative Capital award.